I have a recycled SIM which I legally own, which is linked to the prior owner's Aadhaar.
It will remain linked even if I link my SIM with my Aadhaar. (The Aadhaar->SIM mapping which the government uses is maintained by UIDAI and is not given out, the SIM->Aadhaar mapping which is mandated by DoT is maintained by KYC-regulations of my telecom provider at the telco level)
Exactly. This has happened to a friend. They were able to find my friend's name from Truecaller. Soon they started getting fake calls to get her account number or aadhar number. If my friend's aadhar data had been leaked (as has for thousands other), they were done for. Once your aadhar number gets leaked it gets leaked forever. There is no provision for the government to issue a new one and which is a fundamental flaw in the system.
Yes, these have existed for quite some time. However, you could get one with varying different ID proofs earlier - Driving License, Ration Card, PAN (Tax) Card, Voter ID etc.
Now, we're all being forced to link _everything_ to a single 12-digit Aadhaar.
As per lawyers, the justification for Aadhaar-linkage is very slim[0], but the government is pushing telcos to link so it is happening.
The events:
1. Supreme Court asks DoT in a regular about the status of KYC for telcos and asks for all SIMs to be compliant within a year
2. DoT (department of telco) rewords the above a "direction" (it was not binding till then) of the SC and makes Aadhaar-KYC mandatory (when the original order did not mention Aadhaar in any way, just KYC)
As for the original KYC-law, I'm not entirely sure, but it has existed for decades now.
It's more the original KYC law I was asking about. I find the attempt to deprive people of anonymous communication problematic and I'm curious as to the arguments that have been used successfully to do it so I can better argue against them.
It will remain linked even if I link my SIM with my Aadhaar. (The Aadhaar->SIM mapping which the government uses is maintained by UIDAI and is not given out, the SIM->Aadhaar mapping which is mandated by DoT is maintained by KYC-regulations of my telecom provider at the telco level)